airport express with i-tunes

just get a mini-toslink adaptor and run the cable of your choosing. i'm quite happy with my airtunes going into a mu-fi trivista dac.

Mschamberlin, Tri-vista is a SACD player with build in DAC. You can also make it work like a DAC, sending digital PCM to it and let it do the convertion. I am using wireless (wifi) on the airport and I think hardwire (using CAT5E network cable) might be better. I felt the wireless might increase the jitter on the signal and also the monster cable that I got is not so good. However, I can not find and good toslink cable with have one side using mini jack. If you connect them hardwire, it might have a better result.

Airtunes is a digital signal. iTunes converts everything to Apple Lossless compressed format for wireless streaming to Airport Express (so AE will only work with iTunes). AE decodes the signal and has a built in DAC, about the same quality as the iPod has, to output an analog signal. But it can also output a digital PCM signal, as Waip describes, through the same dual purpose mini-jack, so you can feed the signal to another DAC.

Pjohnston, the Airport Express can be configured a couple of ways. If you're only concerned about getting music on your computer wirelessly through iTunes to your stereo, then no, you don't a preexisting wi-fi connection. Your wi-fi enabled computer and the AE connected to your stereo are all you need to set up your music-only network. As has been mentioned in other threads, setting up AE is not straightforward but also not terribly difficult.

I'm new to the digital age of sound. What's a tri-vista? I'm also new to DACs, but I'm considering purchasing one if I can make a nice working setup. Is a hardwired setup better? How is this done?

So the optical output on the Airport Express is inferior to other connection methods? That's too bad.

I think you can send digital signal from itune to Airport express. And Airport express have a little optial output go to your DAC. However, the cable that Airport can use (mini toslink to toslink) is not so good. Sound is lest than what I hope for. I use it throught a tri-vista as a ext. dac. I hope this help

Using AirTunes, how do use an external DAC to do the DAC work? Does the signal coming from iTunes already DAC processed in the computer?

Quite simple to install, just go to Apple.com and click on the Airtunes link. I bought one to send music from the computer room to the den. They should start shipping soon. Am running a G4 cube, but it will work with windoze too. I will use the DAC in my McIntosh MHT-100 to do the DAC work.